Rhoda Baxter's Blog

Sample chapter of The Valentine’s Express. Meet Poppy and Scott.

Chapter 1

Poppy took off her cotton-print apron and grabbed a box of heart-themed decorations. Now that the breakfast rush was over, her next job was to decorate the station cafe for Valentine’s Day. She always liked doing that, not because she had anything exciting lined up for Valentine’s Day, but because it meant the heritage railway would run a full ste...

The Valentine’s Express at the Brambleberry Steam Railway (or ‘The Valentine’s Expess’ for short) is out in ebook now. I had hoped to have the paperback out too, but that didn’t work out. I’m trying to get it sorted in the next couple of weeks.

“a sweet and uplifting romance about second chances and following your heart.” Goodreads

Can one springtime in a sleepy vill...

Titus is a paint maker (and a good one), who suddenly becomes one of the richest men in London… which is as much a blessing as it is a curse because suddenly, everyone sees his money before they see him. Actually, Titus isn’t too happy with being seen at all. He’s not used to putting himself forward.
Nico is a fake in so many ways. His clothes, his demeanor, even his name. Right now, he owes money to dangerous men and he and his cousin are in danger. When Titus offers him a place in his house...

Facebook helpfully showed me this image and told me this was 8 years ago! A Royal Wedding was the first book that I wrote under my real name. It was a commission (IP project) and was written and published at breakneck speed to coincide with a certain royal wedding. By the time the paperback came out, the cover was different, the title was changed to ‘Christmas At the Palace’ and a Christmas portion was added.

It started my ‘Jeevani Charika’ era!

It marked a (slight)change in direction ...

This book is about midlife and adapting to having an empty nest.
Becca’s daughter Sophie has gone off to university and Becca is feeling lost without her. Then her mother, Josephine, breaks her wrist and needs someone to look after her, so Becca goes over to help.

As a woman in her 50s, I can completely relate to the problems Becca had! We are the sandwich generation – looking after our aging parents and bringing up children. I understood Becca’s discombobulation when all the ‘certainities...

There is a job of shop manager going on the beautiful Island of Omer. Charlie Jones is really looking forward to accepting the job. But on the day, two people turn up. Both with the same letter offering them the job. Both called Charlie Jones.
Which one of them is the real Charlie Jones? Does it matter?

As Charlie (who wants to embark on solo motherhood) and Jones (who wants to a place to reinvent himself and stay sober) share a job, and a home, meant for only one person, they get to know ...

Remember when trope graphics were all the rage? You had your book cover and then some curly arrows pointing to the tropes and themes that are in the book.

I think these are still a really good thing to have – people skim read and you can convey quite a lot of information in one of these graphics. If someone doesn’t read your sort of book, they’ll scroll past (which is fine, they were never going to buy you book anyway), but for someone who loves you genre – you’re hitting them with the m...

I often write books to make myself a place to escape to. During lockdown, I dreamed of cosy, low angst places and I dreamed of community. I’d had an idea of a cosy romantic story set against the background of a heritage steam railway, so I decided to write that. I fell in love with the group of friends (and I already loved steam trains), so I wrote two more.

Now I’m finally releasing these books. Here’s book 1 of the Brambleberry Steam Railway series – The Valentine’s Express. Here’s the cov...

There’s huge excitement in our house today because I can finally talk about my news. Two of my books have been shortlisted for the RNA awards this year.

How Can I Resist You? (written as Jeevani Charika) and Christmas With The Secret Tycoon (written as Rhoda Baxter) have both made it onto the shortlists in different categories.

These books were written under different pen names for two different publishers. I am beyond delighted to have two shortlistings in one year!

Chr...

Typography matters. You can make a cover look much more professional, simply by using more genre appropriate fonts.

I make a lot of romance and fantasy covers and we love a swirly font. But the cardinal rule for book cover text is that The Title Must Be Legible (even in thumbnails). Often, the handwritten and swirly fonts look messy. Or worse, they make your title read like something else.

Last week, I spotted a poster for a film which was apparently called ‘The Faff’. The title was ‘T...